Last week’s Biola Twitter Hunt brought together students from around the campus to compete for a common goal -– winning prizes. Biola’s official Twitter tweeted clues each day of the week, leading prize-seekers to hidden items all over campus.
“The Tweet Hunt was a fun way to put social media technology to good use as a community-building activity for Biola,” said Brett McCracken, the tweeter behind it all. “The mobility and instant nature of Twitter makes it a perfect technology for things like this. It was a great way to get students actively engaged in the founder’s week activities, learning a little Biola history as they ran around trying to figure out the clues and win prizes.”
The rush began as Biola tweets led students all over campus like a cloud of gnats in search of unknown prizes. With Friday’s grand prize being the most difficult, the hunt consisted of a panicked rush of students fighting to figure out the tweeted clues, a race to beat others to the correct location and a fight to find the prize.
The competition became more intense than many of the students expected. Grand prize winner Jon Marcu said that at one point he didn’t even have time to put on his shoes and had to do the hunt barefoot.
“It took some time to figure out the best way to get the twitter clue and then to solve it,” said twitter hunter Kurt Jaros. “One of the days I was in the library, thinking I would have a computer ready to use when I got the clue. But then I realized that I didn’t have cell reception. So I hopped on Twitter and saw that the clue had already been posted. I lost a couple minutes and my chances of winning became minuscule.”
Though the competition proved exciting and fun, it wasn’t just about finding the next prize. Students participating in the hunt learned about Biola’s history and unique quirks as they uncovered the random facts within each clue.
At the end of the Twitter hunt, those who were not as Twitter savvy were able to learn more about how the site works and even got them in the habit of checking their Twitter accounts regularly.
Jaros said his girlfriend set up his Twitter account several months prior, but he was apathetic about using it before the hunt. Now that he is in the groove of checking his phone constantly, he said he wants to be more active in updating his Twitter.
“The hunt made me want to use twitter more often, just out of habit,” Jaros said. “I even thought of texting in my status the other day, like it was second nature.”
He admits “it’s kind of nerdy,” and even changed into shorts and tennis shoes at one point to allow him to run faster in the race.
“I really hope we do the tweet hunt again” Jaros said. “A lot of people got into it, more so during the end of the week. I think a good possibility would be to do it over Missions Conference, a time when people have the exact same schedule. It would be perfect to dish out a tweet clue right as one of the sessions finishes.”
